The Malcolm
Airey collection contains a large number of circus programmes
both British and international and include examples of Billy Smart and
Robert Bros. circuses among others. There are programmes from touring
shows which travelled the length and breadth of the UK and also from circuses
in permanent structures such as the Blackpool Tower circus. The programmes
date from the early 1940s until early 2000 and list a variety of acts
that graced the circus ring, showing the change and development as the
years progressed.

October 11th, or the Friday nearest to it is the official date for Hull
Fair, the biggest and one of the oldest fairs in Europe.
For two weeks, the streets of Hull are taken over by a huge amount of
rides and stalls. In the 18th century the fair was dominated by jugglers,
theatrical booths and puppet shows while from the early 19th century the
famous Wombwell Menagerie show appeared, which introduced the people of
Hull to their first sights of wild animals. The introduction of mechanisation
in the 1870s brought new life to the fair and in a period when many historic
fairs were lost with the passing of the Fairs Act in 1871, the people
of Hull remained loyal to their annual feast. During the 1800s the fair
was held at a variety of locations ranging from the Market Place to Brown
Cow Field outside the town; it eventually moved to Park Street in 1865
on the Corporation Field. In 1888 Hull Fair moved to its present home
on Walton Street, with the original site doubling in size in 1906 to sixteen
acres, making it the largest fair in England at that time.

The last century has seen many changes at Hull Fair with each year bringing
new and wondrous delights for those who attend the annual carnival. Fashions
come and go on the fairground with the showpeople keeping one step ahead
of their competitors and vying with each other to bring the latest attraction
to the October Fair.

The National Fairground Archive
commenced a major project documenting the history of the Hull
Fair from the point of view of the local people and the showmen
who attend.

- Jane Donaldson, Senior Library Assistant,
National Fairground Archive, The University of Sheffield.

Stanley
Houghton (1881-1913): playwirght whose most famous work
Hindle Wakes, 1912, has been filmed several times; the story
includes a trip to Blackpool.

Related links

National Fairground
Archive: inaugurated by the Vice Chancellor of the University of
Sheffield in 1994, with the support of the Showmen's Guild of Great
Britain and the Fairground Association of Great Britain. Housed in the
Western Bank Library, it is a unique collection of photographic, printed,
manuscript and audiovisual material covering all aspects of the culture
of travelling showpeople, their organisation as a community, their social
history and everyday life; and the artefacts and machinery of fairgrounds.

Hull Fair Project:
conducted with funding from The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and contains
many images which are available to view in the reading room (University
of Sheffield)

Admission
all classes: a series of events based upon research about the history
of fairground, music hall, circus and sea-side entertainments (Blackpool,
Lancashire)

Suggested reading

Links
are provided to records on Copac for these items. Copac
is the free, web based national union catalogue, containing the holdings
of many of the major university and National Libraries in UK and Ireland
plus a number of special libraries. For more information about accessing
items see the FAQs
on the Copac website.

Ferris wheels: an illustrated history by Norman D. Anderson,
1982. Records
on Copac